Thrice-widowed Mississippi girl convicted in 1 murder

NEW ORLEANS — A thrice-widowed lady turned into convicted Friday of 2nd-diploma homicide within the death of her 2d husband in 2006 — a fancy case that prosecutors in New Orleans referred to is linked to the unsolved dying of her third husband in 2011 in Mississippi.

The verdict came after prosecutors talked about Emma Raine plotted Ernest Smith's killing along with her future third husband, James Raine, who become later shot to loss of life himself in their Poplarville, Mississippi, domestic. No arrests had been made in James Raine's 2011 demise, besides the fact that children authorities say Emma Raine is a suspect.

James Raine's adoptive brother, Alfred "Terry" Everette is serving a existence sentence as the set off man in Smith's loss of life.

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The jury's choice changed into unanimous. Emma Raine faces a mandatory sentence of lifestyles in penal complex. Formal sentencing is determined for Oct. 21. Appeals are planned.

"Here's the lady who is destroying the lives of every man around her with no care," Assistant District attorney Laura Rodrigue advised the jury, relating to both useless husbands and Everette.

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Raine had moved to Grain Valley, Missouri, and had married a fourth time, to John W. Golston, when she changed into arrested and waived extradition to Louisiana in 2013, after a tip to a cold case detective put police on her path.

Golston, reached by way of cellphone Friday evening, angrily suggested his wife the victim of a corrupt Louisiana criminal device. "I feel this total aspect became fabricated," he noted. "It turned into a setup. It wasn't correct. She failed to have any person killed and he or she didn't kill any person."

He said authorities, in impact, "tried and convicted her before she went to trial" with publicity about the allegations no longer most effective in regards to the deaths of husbands two and three, but also about her first husband, Leroy Evans. In Everette's 2014 trial, Rodrigue mentioned there were suspicions about Evans' 1994 loss of life whereas he was receiving scientific care following an vehicle accident. Testimony from that case changed into now not allowed in Raine's trial.

James Raine's members of the family had been in the court docket for Friday's verdict. They declined remark but handed out a prepared observation thanking police and prosecutors, expressing sympathy for Smith's family unit and saying they are going to "pursue closure" in James' loss of life in Mississippi.

Lead defense attorney Martin Regan every now and then sounded as notwithstanding he had been defending Emma Raine for 2 killings, stressing to jurors that nobody has been charged in James Raine's death. Prosecutors say James and Emma Raine organized for Everette to shoot Smith for a $10,000 share of $800,000 in insurance funds. family of Raine testified that Everette told them as tons, tearfully and anxiously confessing his function after James Raine became up lifeless in 2011.

Everette was convicted in 2014. he is attractive that 2d-diploma murder conviction, which contains a lifestyles sentence. In one of the trial's more dramatic moments, a shackled Everette turned into brought into the court docket but refused to approach the witness stand and defiantly refused to reply questions because the jury watched.

Regan argued that James Raine and Everette plotted Smith's death devoid of involving Emma. He known as no witnesses, as a substitute opting for to assault aspects of the prosecution case. He mentioned that no eyewitnesses or physical evidence connected Emma to Smith's death in an all-but abandoned japanese New Orleans condominium advanced months after storm Katrina.

He additionally referred to that witnesses pointed out Everette advised them he turned into in no way paid from the coverage proceeds. Regan argued that James was afraid to ask his wife for the money because he didn't wish to tell her it turned into for her 2d husband's killer.

Regan cast Smith and James Raine as much less-than-most appropriate mates, announcing both have been adulterous, that James had seduced Emma throughout her marriage to Smith and that he plotted with Everette — devoid of Emma's involvement — to kill Smith. Rodrigue observed there became no proof brought of Smith's adultery.

Prosecutors noted Emma Raine turned into devious.
Jurors also heard that Emma Raine, upon getting to know that Smith's daughter, Queentene Jefferson, became in line to receive some of Smith's insurance advantage, had her personal daughter forge files, the usage of Jefferson's identify, to make Emma the beneficiary.